Manya Shochat (Mania Shohat)
Manya Shochat (Born near Grodno in 1880*; Died 1961) was the "mother" of the Kibbutz movement and collective settlement. She was born as Manya Wilbushewitch in Belorussia to middle-class Russian Jewish parents. As a young adult, she went to work in her brother's factory in Minsk to learn about working class conditions. She was imprisoned because of her contacts with revolutionaries in 1899. There she was indoctrinated by Zubatov, the head of the Tsarist Secret Police in Moscow. Zubatov conceived a plan that fit with Shochat's ideological notions, through which workers would form "tame" organizations that would work for reform rather than for overthrow of the government. She was persuaded that this would also help achieve rights for Jews. She founded the Jewish Independent Labor Party. The party was successful in leading strikes because the secret police supported it, but was loathed by the Bund and other Jewish socialist groups. The party collapsed in 1903 following the Kishinev pogrom. At a loss following the collapse of her ideas, she accepted an invitation from her brother Nachum, who was the founder of the Shemen soap factory, to visit the land of Israel in 1904. Anticipating Arthur Ruppin, she understood that the model of plantation settlement where Jewish owners employed Arab workers, which favored by the Baron Rothschild, could never be the basis for Jewish national life. She concluded that only collective agricultural settlement could produce Jewish workers and farmers who would be the basis for building a Jewish homeland. She returned in 1907 to help establish the country’s first ideologically based cooperative at Sejera, which later became the basis of the first Kibbutz. In 1908, with Israel Shochat, she helped found the Hashomer guard organization, which evolved into the basis of Jewish self-defense. She later married Israel Shochat and had two children. In World War I, the Turks deported the Shochats and others who were not Turkish citizens to Bursa, in Turkey. They returned in 1919, after attending the Poalei Tziyon convention in Stockholm. She was active in the G'dud Ha'avoda. In 1930, Manya Shochat was among the founders of the League for Arab-Jewish Friendship. With Rahel Yanaait she traveled to the United States to raise money and organize Aliya. In 1948 she joined the MAPAM party. * Some sources give her date of birth as 1879.
See Also:
More Israeli and Zionist BiographiesThe Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Zionism and Israel
By Chaviva Frank;
Born Manya Wilbushevitz in 1879 in the town of Lososna near the city of Grodno in Russia to an unusual Jewish family. Her grandparents lived like gentiles making a very good living as suppliers to the Russian army. Her father, on the other hand, raised her with the spirit of Jewish traditional life. He was a deeply spiritual man and this left an imprint on Manya.
Manya grew up in the turbulent years of Russian political and ideological turmoil. At this time it was not uncommon for a worker to have to toil between 12 to 14 hours for his meager wages. It was also the time of the Jewish secular movements who also had their answers to end the Jewish plight. Manya left home at an early age to work in a sweatshop because she wanted to experience the plight of the common man.
Most of the idealists at the time were revolutionaries who believed that the workers salvation could only come through the overthrow of the Russian government. Manya thought differently, she felt that the solution mainly was in the education and organization of the workers in non political (meaning not anti government) union activity.
Amongst the groups current at that time were the Bund which believed in the alleviation of the Jewish problem through better material conditions, together with socialism, but were anti Zionist although quite pro-Jewish culture. At the same time there existed the beginnings of the Zionist movements that called for the Jews to leave Russia and immigrate to Israel. Manya had her own ideas and did not enter into Zionist or even Jewish identity thinking until later in her life, as we shall see.
During a crack down on the Russian activists, she was arrested and imprisoned. Because of her simplistic and dedicated belief in the betterment of the Russian proletariat who was impressed with her sincerity, she became friendly with her interrogator, Zubatov, a high Russian official, who agreed with her philosophy. He tried to help her. Eventually she was released and she tried to bring her philosophic ideas into action, but after another cruel crack down by the Russian authorities she felt force was a necessity and she became a gun smuggler, purchasing and smuggling guns to defend her group.
During this period, she had hid some guns in a house and later became aware that the Russian police were watching the house. Suddenly a young man came to the door seeking refuge from the police. Manya let him in but during the course of their conversation, she became convinced that he was sent by the Russian secret police to find out about her activities. She pulled out a small handgun that had a silencer on it and killed him. She loaded his body into a trunk and sent it to a far destination. From that point on, whenever anyone was killed mysteriously, she was suspected of doing it.
In 1903, the infamous pogroms of Kishinev erupted and the Jews of Russia suffered a devastating blow. Manya began a turning point in her life. She and her comrades met and decided to dedicate themselves to helping the Jews. The pogroms had made a fundamental change in Manya, now she was completely dedicated to the redemption of her people. They decided on a plan to assassinate the Russian minister of the interior, Plehve, who hated the revolutionaries and Jews. With a complicated plan, Manya was sent to Berlin to raise funds. While she was there, the Russian police uncovered the plot; most of Manya's friends were arrested, tortured and executed.
With this bad news, a chapter in her life closed and a new one began. Not able to return to Russia, depressed with the loss of her comrades, and the failure of their plot, she decided to visit her brother, Nachum, in Israel. Her brother was the founder of the famous Shemen oil and soap factory in Haifa. With her brother and several newly found friends they made an extensive tour of the country meditating on the future of the land and imbibing in the rich biblical past. Manya became a new person. No longer concerned with the Russian revolution, but with the development of the Land of Israel and the betterment of the Jewish workers.
At this point it is important to mention that Baron Rothchild had invested much money in purchasing lands in Israel to bring agriculture back to a barren land. Each plot of land was administered by a Jew. This Jewish administrator hired Arab workers to work the land. To protect the small farming estate, he hired more Arabs to guard the property. The immigrant Jews, on the other had could not compete economically with the Arabs since the Arabs lived in nearby villages in small houses. They also had a small amount of land to plant for their own crop and several small animals to augment the small wages paid. To make matters worse, the hiring of Arabs inspired other Arabs searching for better wages to come from neighboring lands to Israel.
The Jews, on the other hand, had no homes, the Jewish Agency had many years to go until it was created. The Jews lived together, with many people sharing one small room. They had little income to purchase their daily bread.
In addition, she noted that the agricultural farms never made a profit. There was no incentive for the Arabs to work hard to achieve more crops. The administrators were accustomed to never producing a profit and relied on more funding from Baron Rothchild.
Manya reasoned out the idea of a communal farming experiment, utilizing the Jewish labor, training them to work the field by day and to be their own guards at night. Instead of having Arabs work the land, and employing Arabs to guard the land, have Jews farmers work in a co-operative that would include both the tilling of the land and the guarding of it.
She approached several of Baron Rothchild's administrators, but only one thought that her ideas had any merit. She went to see Baron Rothchild in France and convinced him to allow a trial on one of the existing farms. This experiment was a success. Manya proved that Jewish laborers had the ability and the incentive to make the Land of Israel bloom plus the tenacity to stand guard over their own fields against Arab bandit gangs.
Soon Manya and her friends formed the "HaShomer" group, a secret group dedicated to the armed guard of the settlements. They gave birth to the first communal settlement, called Sejera, later changed to Ilaniya, located between Tiberias and Natzeret. Afterwards, Degania was organized and started. The communal agricultural settlement became a success due to the backbreaking labor and the self sacrifice of those brave and courageous settlers. Manya, herself participated in the physical toil as well as the guard duties, in addition to her administrative role. 
The Arabs were not fond of these settlements for they took away their livelihood. Manya tried to promote peaceful cooperation with the indigenous Arabs but try though she may, with small success, peace was never a viable substance.
During this period she met her husband Israel Shochat, a dashing and idealistic man who shared the same philosophy as Manya (he was 9 years younger then her). They were married in 1908 and had two children, Anna and Gady. At one point Israel, together with David Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Zvi (a future President of the State of Israel) studied Turkish Law in Turkey. Since Turkey was the administrative government in Israel, knowledge of Turkish law was fundamental.
Manya spend all of her years in service to the communal good. She took upon herself special tasks, such as fund raising, smuggling in guns in to protect the settlements. She was successful in both. She set an example to all through her hard work in menial chore, guarding, and administrating the co-operatives.
At one time Manya and her husband were arrested by the Turks and exiled to Brusa, Turkey. They spent several years there until they were able to leave. Their daughter Anna was born there during their exile.
After World War I, the British ousted theTurks and began limiting Jewish immigration. Manya worked to help in smuggling Jews in from the Diaspora. She helped found Tel Chai in the upper Galilee, which became a center for importing smuggled weapons from Lebanon.
Manya took active part in every national cause. Giving of herself 100% to the needs of her friends. In the eyes of the nation and in the eyes of her friends she set the example of a self-giving and courageous woman.
Yitzhak ben Zvi, David ben Gurion, and Yitzhak Shochet in Turkey
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Unfortunately, everything has its price. Manya's marriage was not a happy one. Her husband, Israel, became a womanizer. They separated, Manya spending her time in the communes, and Israel living his life with his various female friends in Tel Aviv.
Even her children did not acknowledge her. Her daughter Anna told reporters that she never had a relationship with her parents. She quipped to David Ben Gurion, who asked about her famous and courageous mother, that she was an orphan. Raised with the knowledge that the Land was first and foremost, she never forgave her mother and father for their lack of attention. Their son, Gady ( Gidon) , choose to end his own life in 1967. Gady was the father of Alona (passed away in 2005, the ex wife of singer; Arik Einstein) Her two daughters married the sons of Uri Zohar.
Perhaps with out Manya's contribution, the Land of Israel would have had to find another venue to redeem itself. She could be rightly called the mother of Israel's kibbutz's, if not the mother of her own children.
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From the June 2003 Edition of the Jewish Magazine
Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz and his wife, Shulamit, founding director of the Women’s Studies Research Center and Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, are co-editors of a new book titled A Fearless Visionary in the Land of Israel: The Letters of Manya Shochat (or Mania Shohat) 1906-1960. They edited the work with Motti Golani. The book was published in Hebrew by Yad Ben-Zvi Press, Jerusalem.
Known as the “mother” of the Kibbutz movement and collective settlement, Shochat (1880-1961) was a well-known Zionist activist who founded the Jewish Independent Labor Party. Biographies depict her as a genuinely altruistic, tireless crusader for the good of the community at large, and as someone who was not averse to concealing and using firearms in pursuit of her cause.
In an article in The Jewish Magazine, Chaviva Frank characterized Shochat as being “Today almost forgotten, but once a legend.” She said Sochat’s life “resembled an imaginative Hollywood soap opera, except that it was real!”
my.brandeis.edu/news/item?ne ws_item_id=104254...
Production Year: 1988
Length in Min: 46
Versions: Hebrew, English
The life of an extraordinary pioneer of the “Second Aliya,” (second wave of immigration), active and very involved in both the Russian and Zionist revolutions. The wife of Israel Shochat - one of the founders of the “HaShomer” (the guardian) group and kibbutz Kfar Giladi in upper Galilee. Her activities of many years in Czarist Russia and later in the defense and leadership of the Jewish settlers of Palestine, became legendary already in her lifetime and only increased after her death. The film examines the reason for this, with the aid of reconstructed dramatic insets, interviews, stills and documentary material.
Director: Orna Ben Dor-Niv
Producer: Yigal Efrati, David Schuetz
To read in Hebrew go to
http://lib.cet.ac.il/Pages/sub.asp?kwd=5924
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